In Stores, Private Handcuffs for Sticky Fingers

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Published: June 17, 2003

Steps from the pantyhose section of Macy's Manhattan store sits a cool, halogen-lighted room containing two chain-link holding cells. People, some of them minors, are led to this room every day, where they are body-searched, photographed and then handcuffed to a long steel bench.

An interrogation occurs, and a verdict is made as to whether or not they tried to steal. Their Social Security numbers are punched into a national database, and they are turned over to the police or they are freed. Almost all of them sign confessions and are asked to pay private penalties -- five times the amount of whatever they stole.

This private jail, and the policing system that governs it, is replicated to varying degrees in other department stores across the nation with a twofold purpose: to stop shoplifting and to recoup some of the billions of dollars lost to theft every year.

Last year, more than 12,000 people moved through detention rooms in 105 of Macy's stores, including more than 1,900 at the Manhattan store, in Herald Square. Only 56 percent of those people were sent to the police. The company, though, says that over 95 percent of those detained confess to shoplifting and quite a few pay the in-store penalty before leaving. The Manhattan store lost $15 million to theft last year.

But the elaborate systems like the one at Macy's in Manhattan -- which includes 100 security officers, four German shepherds, hundreds of cameras, and a closed-circuit television center reminiscent of a spaceship control room -- have highlighted a concern shared by a range of people, from civil libertarians to individual shoppers who have been detained, and even to some law enforcement officials.

Whether guilty or innocent, these critics say, those accused of shoplifting are often deprived of some of the basic assurances usually provided in public law enforcement proceedings: the right to legal representation before questioning, rigorous safeguards against coercion, particularly in the case of juveniles, and the confidence that the officers in charge are adequately trained and meaningfully monitored.

Private security operations in the retail world, like those in gated communities, amusement parks and sports stadiums, have grown in number over the last three decades yet remain largely shrouded from public scrutiny.

''The issue of private security guards is a difficult one,'' said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ''On the one hand, stores have an interest in protecting their business. But on the other hand, security guards have neither the training nor the same legal obligations as police officers and the danger of interfering with individual rights is huge.''

Some retail chains have less-elaborate detention areas, using storage rooms or offices instead of jails, and some stores have more direct and regular dealings with police. Wal-Mart's policy, for instance, is to always contact the police when its security guards detain a suspected shoplifter, a company spokesman said. But aggressive policing is a daily staple of the retail industry, with most major retail stores employing some version of the detention and civil recovery procedures used by Macy's.

''That's standard operating procedure in virtually every store in America,'' said Dr. Richard Hollinger, a sociologist and criminologist at the University of Florida who compiles information about theft-prevention tactics from stores nationwide for a yearly report.

Law enforcement officials in New York, including the state attorney general, said they knew very little about the details and scope of the kind of security operation being run at Macy's. Officials in Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office were not aware of any complaints against retail security operations, but have investigated other forms of private policing and said the practice can lead to serious problems.

The security operations in place at stores like Macy's have provoked litigation. Last month, Macy's was sued by a Bronx paralegal and other people with a range of claims about how Macy's polices shoplifting -- from racial profiling to false imprisonment. They are represented by Kenneth P. Thompson, a former federal prosecutor.

In 1997, a jury awarded another shopper, Paula Hampton, $1.16 million for race discrimination when she was detained at a Kansas Dillard's store. That same year, a jury ordered Eddie Bauer to pay $1 million to three men in Maryland for false imprisonment and other charges.

A Look Behind the Scenes

Macy's officials said the recent charges against them were reckless, and they ardently defended their security practices as lawful, professional and exacting in their ability to weed out thieves among innocent shoppers. To counter allegations of unfairness, the store allowed a reporter wide behind-the-scenes access to its Manhattan store, the company's flagship.

To tour the store is to appreciate the immense security challenge faced by Macy's, as well as the potential for intimidation among those detained.